Young Writers Society

Story related to the events that happen in State to State and What Happened in Heaven, all three novels joining together to tell the story of 4 champions, cousins who cause all the stories to relate under the same universe. In every story, Isaac is a minor character, carefully pulling on the strings of each champion.

This specific story is set from 1929 to 1953, during the most rigorous years in both the magical and mortal world. Should cause for some interesting adventures and I've only planned out half of them.

January 21, 2021

To whoever is reading this letter, placed firmly in the front of my journal collection, I trust that you have not destroyed them. The records that you will find in my house date back over eight thousand years, to the very beginnings of the modern wizarding council. If you even dare to touch one scroll, the spirits will rise and no one will ever hear from you again, destroying sacred souls is an act punishable by death.

Speaking of death, which may have brought you to my home in the first place and then you decided to be nosy. I never died and I doubt that I am dead, maybe crippled or maybe running away yet again, but the one thing I know is that death will never reach me. That may seem rather boastful to say for almost no one can escape the eventuality of death, it always comes around and hurts you. But for me, death came a long, long time ago and didn’t like what he saw. In fact he made sure that I would never make it into the afterlife that I wanted to go to so badly, by cursing me to leave out a lonely eternity. For a mortal man, immortality and invincibility, is quite possibly the grandest things your kind could think of. For a witch who has lived for eight millennium, I regret ever wishing for Death to come to me in the first place.

That was many lives ago and since then I have gone through twenty generations, this side of me not often relevant. None of the previous holders of my spirit were willing to take on eternal youth to end the war to end all wars. No one among the previous girls who let me guide them through the dangers and the battles, were willing to make a final sacrifice. Not until this girl, who is a century old herself and celebrating her 102nd birthday today.

Sixty eight years ago, I decided perhaps it was time for me to separate our consciousness and become a limbo spirit, finally able to walk among people in my own form. This is what I needed, compassion and care and love from someone who was willing to take the time to understand me, connect with me on a deeper level. Being a ghost and a nagging voice in the back of someone’s head is no way to live but this life that I have now, is better than I ever could have imagined.

My curse is rare and you better believe that I have been trying to break it for very many years, never successful until 1953 when the last bad story ended. At the bottom of the page, I have a list of all pertinent entries to discovering who we were, but I’d recommend starting from February 14, 1929 in Jeanne’s journal, much more insightful than mine.

February 14, 1929

My day started out the best that it could, since mom and dad were away on business again, the very serious business they always tell me not to mess with. They stayed just long enough a few weeks ago to celebrate my tenth birthday and then it was time to go away again.

I understand about the things that they deal with up north, how the persecution of every race and species goes on, and how our world isn’t very accepting.
For thousands of years, mortals and magicals stood side by side, eventually falling into some sort of battle and then became enemies.
Humans told us that they could handle their own business and didn’t need any magical involvement, so they got none, even in the last war until the very end. They told us to stay away but we didn’t, and all of those years of pretending magic didn’t exist, the illusion was shattered. When the curtains closed, they ironically showed everything that was going on right under everyone’s noses.

And then I was born, one of the children of the war, allowed to integrate in the mortal world and treat them as equals. They called my parents thing for letting us live in that world where people could still be killed because of their race, and think what they would do to entire other species. For that reason, I know very few humanoids living outside of a cloaked city, fearing that the moment they step out death will rain down.

I slip further away from the point of this journal entry, the first real one that I’ve ever made, Mom and Dad are dead. For someone of my age and stance and whatever the heck else, I should join my grandmother in crying with my brothers and sisters. The man from the agency left about an hour ago, tipped his hat, said his condolences again and simply left. It’s so odd how the agency commits so much to a family when a child is born or a slighter older child decides to join up, but when they die, little recognition is given.

My visions should have seen this coming, even though they did already foresee a crash with the economy, a deathly thing to endure when it comes around. I’ve seen far worse things ahead in our world, that will affect us for many years to come, but yet I did not see the one event that would impact me most. This should have been something that I focused on but there’s no use in worrying about an oversight now. In a few days, my serious approach to things will break and I’ll be in the same state I was in when everyone else died, when Albert died, when my grandparents and great-grandparents, except for Grandma Cecilia.

When you lose so many people at a young age, you don’t really understand the concept of death, or even how to process it. Yet I am somehow different, a little outlier on the scale where I understand exactly what happened, why it happened and who would need to pay. For most of them, it was natural because of old age, but for a few so far, there has been foul play. In my parent’s death, it was just one of those cases that were so dangerous they even lied to themselves, lied to me that it would all be alright in the end. I should have seen that lie coming too but sometimes conversations and relayed messages get jumbled by emotions, and the spirits don’t tell you until it’s much too late.

So for now, I’m stuck somewhere but it’s not Indiana that I’m thankful for. I don’t know where the path will lead me, Grandma will probably take us back home tp Florida, even though West Virginia is her home and she loved being here so much. I don’t want to do that to her again, uproot her like she was uprooted by her family, when she was young. The feeling is mutual. But it was also so long ago that she was young, in the second millennium of the new council, when humans hadn’t switched to witch hunts yet and when we still existed in their society. When we were gods to them.

And gods we will be again soon, according to all of the visions that have so far come to me. Say that there is much of this Earth that needs cleansed and rid of, and isn’t that what the gods and the celestial spirits are most known for?

February 26, 1929

Somewhere out in the western states, they opened up a new National Park, not the first in a long line and it certainly will not be the last. I have had little respect for the people of this country in recent months, as Chicago went farther downhill and I sincerely hope that Prohibition ends soon, it’s caused more deaths than the liquor did originally. The only success it has had so far is funding the mob and killing cops and federal agents, people who might not have exactly been good people, but still better than the scum that killed them. I put my parents in with those victims because they weren’t all together nice people but they were good at heart, willing to die for their country rather than see it fall into a bitter fight.

There is a war on the horizon and things are starting to bubble in Germany, things I’ve found out by talking to some seers from their ancient coven while we were at meets for the ice races. Those bits and pieces of information, the sight of all the soldiers from all of the sides lying face down in the dirt, chilled me more than any of the rivers they had chosen yesterday.

That’s right. I went on performing in the ice races even though I realized my parents wouldn’t be there at the finish line when I beat everyone there. And I did beat everyone in every single level they would let me compete in, just because I wanted to show off some of the techniques I had been learning this year. Some of the fancy tricks I had created to fool the enemy into thinking the opposite of what was actually happening, the mind games that I hate so much are what allow me to win.

Physically, on land, I’m lamer than old nag trying to win the Kentucky Derby. But once I’m in the water, it’s no surprise that several judges have compared me to a fish, even though my body shape is horrible for anything sports related. My arms aren’t very strong and I might bit a little bit heavy, but I manage to win every time.
Many people have accused me of cheating throughout the years and think I found a way around the magical ban. Really I have, it wasn’t that hard of a spell to break through, more for show than anything else. And there are others that I know of who use magic to cheat against the rule book but I would never sink to that level, knowing that I can beat the clock without slowing down time.

Following the rules is something I rarely do though, most of the time I’m looking for loopholes and barely following through with what they want me to do. That’s just how I like to do things, living on the edge and risking it all just for one thrill now, making me very much against the standard even for the magical world.

In the mortal places, women barely have any rights, despite all the campaigns saying that they have entered a new age. For them it might be new to have some actual equality, rather than just the inferred notion that you are the same, despite all those around you telling you the opposite. And even for all of those things and complicated matters, where picking up cues seems an impossible task, it is still simpler than our world. They have finally come to the point of equality between race, gender and sexuality, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, and we passed it long ago.

No one will take my side of things seriously though, I'm just barely at an in-between age, not sure who to associate myself with. Even my words don't match with my age, maybe that's what leads to some of the hurt I experience at the hands of others, hatred because I dove into a dictionary once and didn't come back until the pain had passed by. The cycle repeats itself over and over again, I escape to my books to be free from the people who hurt me, but the more I read, the more they want to hurt me. Catch 22.

That’ll be the title of a book about this upcoming war, or rather eventually it will be a possibility. Everything that I see in those visions are all eventual things, maybe they will happen or maybe they will become uprooted by some little action, like a guy in a car turning left instead of right to sneeze. Something so simple shouldn’t be able to fracture and entire timeline, but that is what the new theories are shaping up to be, the direction of your life is affected by every decision you make and every decision that every other single being makes.

So in my rather basic opinion, I’d rather not think about all of those things, and just go on living life however I can best see it. There is only one solution to controlling everyone and that’s a scenario that will hopefully never happen.

These are becoming much darker than I intended but that's just the way that the words come to me.

April 1, 1929

There are very few holidays that I actually enjoy, Halloween and April Fools, are among them. Holidays are weird for me because who really wants to dress up in stuffy clothing and talk to the people you're going to avoid for the rest of the year? The only real promise that you get out of them is food, possibly some chocolate or a book here and there, overall suffering with little return.

Halloween on the other hand is based entirely on your creativity level and willingness to hike for long distances to several places. April Fools allows you to torture people you dislike to a certain level and no one is going to give you crap about it, because it's just a prank. It's how I take out my grievances each year on the magicals and mortals who bother me too much, or target me simply because of who I am. Just because you don't like someone's parents or grandparents, doesn't mean you should encourage your children to attack them.

That's basically how it works for me. People don't like parts of my family lineage because of certain connections during the previous mortal world war and my family's reputations for things in the past. I tried to build my own reputation, my own basis for how people could possibly judge me, but no one can look past something that happened long ago. And that's what makes me rant here, in ink, not in my enemy's blood like I could easily do. I keep my impulses under control even though the spirits kick in sometimes and tempt me, telling me that doing this one thing now will prepare me for things later down the road.

But if I kill this one person now, I will forever change the course of my destiny, not allowing me to go onward in my quest for the crown. There are some prophecies that show me having a large say in protecting the world, saving it from whatever catastrophe is right around the corner. This is another thing that I don't like to think that much about, since it could easily go to someone's head, in the good and bad ways.

It often makes you think of things in the clearest but still darkest way, questioning every action as it could determine your fate. Either sending you into the deepest pits of hell, to fight the monsters of your life for all of eternity, or a restful peace in the halls of the champions. Or even to some extent I could land in the purgatory, for the people I will one day kill, will be done so in the name of the holy orders of old. Working for the church during the Middle Ages, going on those Crusades and all, guaranteed you a nice little spot upstairs.

Though with how many holy soldiers have died over the years, you would expect there to be more guardian angels, if those sorts of things actually existed. Instead the world has taken more people from us, made the conditions a thousand times worse, and allowed evil to rise out of every crack in the sidewalk. These are the sorts of things that make the preachers paranoid, afraid that the horsemen will soon rise and there will be nothing left to protect. Mortal preachers think that they can protect their lands but yet they do not recognize how many times Death has risen or how many of us have met Death.

He’s not a particularly bad soul, only serving a purpose to his king, carrying out a duty and protecting the crown. The Horsemen are just knights to a higher kingdom, though of as evil but really just responses to it occurring in the world. Demons exist. We must recognize that to be true, through their corruption of people and literally existing. Most often people overlook the seven deadly sins as real entities, thinking that they are just summaries of bad traits in a society, but I saw them once. And once was all that I needed to confirm the belief that demons do exist and that they walk freely among us.

But here I am yet again, dipping into the remorseful and ultimate questioning of the universe, when I should be thinking about all of the fun and wonderful things happening today. I guess that I have some form of fun, for I always look forward to this time every year, a time to let myself free from the bonds of school and practicing.
The pranks this year were about the same as always, wizarding traps and buckets of water over the doors. No one did anything really harmful, just enough to poke fun and cause a bother, usually ending in some embrace and people being joyful. Not for me. No one ever plays tricks on me because they know that next year it will come back to bite them, James Rowlands learned that lesson two years ago.

That was certainly a regretful period in my timeline, a bit before I ahd learned to control my powers and emotions, or even realized how majorly connected the two of them were. Panic attacks could cause me to light things on fire and considering I spent most of my time in a barn filled with hay that was a mistake on so many levels. Just pain and mistakes and doubt, were essentially the substance of my life for three years while my parents weren’t around. They valued their work above their family, even though they kept having children, despite never being there to care for them. Instead those tasks were passed to Grandma and I, leading the household while everyone else was away taking care of important things.

I almost hate my mother for her part in it, not recognizing what it was doing to her family, tearing them apart little by little. I think she was just too young when she started the family, still tied to her career and wanting to have more going on with her life than she did when connected to us. If she had stayed with us, instead of handing us off to her grandparents, maybe I would not have received all of the training I have from Cecilia. Maybe I wouldn’t be as prepared as I currently am for the end of the world and ready to take my seat on the council. But the thing that I would have, is love in a greater form than I currently feel it in, maternal but not in the same way. The bond I hold with my grandmother is different than the bond one should be able to hold with their own mother, something I rarely ever get to experience and never will again.

That’s why I’m not all as broken up about her death as I should be, because I never got to know her that much and I blame her for splitting us all up into pieces. Dad isn’t to blame, he told her over and over again that if she wanted to quit the agency, and start actually living a nice life, he would go with her. He was the assistant director of the Southern branch and that would be giving up an awful lot, but he loved her more than any romance that I have ever seen. I only wish that maybe Dad would have stayed home in her place one time, so that I could actually recognize what he meant to our family, other than the military man my grandmother regards him as.

This all strays further from the point but that is really how my mind has been operating lately. Absorbing information and listening to what has been going on, but I haven’t really been focused for a long time, too quickly jumping around to explore other happenings. I need to get to a point where I have friends over enemies and neutrals, I don’t want to live out the rest of my childhood in pain and in a gray area. It doesn’t have to be the light side of the world, I would like to even have demons as friends, I would rather have anything over the nothing that I possess.

And so I wish that those children and those adults that I pass everyday, would realize that I’m not all as bad as I seem, not the little devil some regard me to be. If I cause harm to an individual, it is simply an accident, I don’t mean to hurt those around me but I have no way of connecting to them. Most girls and boys and others of my age and status, would be regarded so high in their communities, rather than me who is seen on an entirely different food chain.

In actuality for the results of pranks played against me, I probably wouldn't hurt them at all, I would just like to be included. But people always assume things about you, just because they can and there's enough information to support a loose theory. It happens in both worlds so there's not really anything that I can say one way or another, it all causes pain to those involved in the end.